| Article ID: | iaor1999510 |
| Country: | Netherlands |
| Volume: | 92 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Start Page Number: | 593 |
| End Page Number: | 602 |
| Publication Date: | Aug 1996 |
| Journal: | European Journal of Operational Research |
| Authors: | Brans Jean-Pierre |
| Keywords: | decision theory: multiple criteria |
This paper is the text of the speech made by the author when he was presented with the Gold Medal of EURO in 1994. It reflects on the contribution of multi-criteria decision-making techniques to the development of OR. The paper is divided into sections: (1) Operational Research and Physics; (2) The first age of OR modelisation (1937–1970); (3) The second age of OR modelisation (1970–1995); (4) The PROMETHEE-GAIA multicriteria procedure; (5) The space of freedom of the decision maker; (6) Modelisation of the human brain; (7) Proposal for a third age of Operational Research.